Writer. Book wizard. Future lawyer.

End of Week 1

So, sorry I’m so bad at blogging! I was going to try so hard, but then my first 45-hour work week (plus 10 hours of commuting) kind of wiped me out. Here’s a quick summary of my time here so far! I’ll really try to be better next week about blogging as I go.

Sunday, June 2
I went to National Community Church in Georgetown (they meet in theaters and have like six different locations). It was fun! This was also my first time actually setting foot in the District of Columbia while I was here:

Monday, June 3:
My first day of work! Exciting and overwhelming. Four of us started on Monday, and they trained us on using the computer system and doing data entry. We got to meet our supervisor and get paraded around the office meeting the rest of the staff (I had no idea how big senate offices were!), go on a go-find-where-everything-is scavenger hunt, and basically figure out how not to make fools of ourselves while we’re there. We’ve almost succeeded–during the scavenger hunt we accidentally stumbled upon John Boehner’s office. Oops!

Tuesday, June 4:
Second day of work! And more training. I also finally got my intern badge, which was exciting. You have no idea how gratifying it is to see “Authorized Personnel Only” on a door and in the Capitol Building and then realize that you’re “authorized personnel.”

Wednesday, June 5:
Every Wednesday, we have Colorado coffee, where constituents can come and have coffee and ask questions of the senator and his staff, which is super fun. I loved getting to talk to all the different groups of Coloradans who came to the office. Then, that afternoon, I got to go see Chuck Todd speak as part of the congressional intern lecture series. He gave a fabulous talk on the current state of American politics and what the midterm elections are likely to look like. I won’t give too much detail, since the whole thing is supposed to be pretty off-the-record, but it was a lot of fun. I also learned how to sort voicemails on Wednesday, which is also pretty interesting.

Thursday, June 6:
Thursday we had tour training. That took up about four and a half hours of the day, during which time we got a tour, learned safety protocol, had to give a piece of a tour, learned about the building, and learned how we would give tours. This is super nerdy, but I’m really excited to start giving tours. I think it’s a ball. Then I went and had dinner at Union Station (there’s a really fun little sandwich shop, and the staff there is hilarious) and went to Ebenezer’s Coffee House, which is right by there. National Community Church has this small group for DC interns that meets at the coffee shop on Thursday nights. It was mostly girls from a bunch of different areas interning at everywhere imaginable. We also had one guy, a grad student from the University of Maryland. We took bets on whether we thought he would come back. But it was an awesome group, and I’m really hoping to make some good friends there.

Friday, June 7:
Friday was nuts! We trained on phones, which took a good while, but luckily they work in a similar way to the ones I’m used to using in the Career Center. We also had a meeting with the Legislative Director, which was awesome. I’m learning a ton about working on the Hill and what it takes to succeed here. We also had a writing workshop.

Saturday, June 8:
My first day off. Today was super busy. Toni and I went and walked about 3 miles to Georgetown and had a fabulous brunch at an adorable French bistro during which time I ate way too much and drank a ton of coffee. We hung around Georgetown for a while and she took me to this amazing art gallery/store which had some really incredible art, probably in the most eclectic collection I’ve ever seen. It was one of those “organized chaos” kind of places where you’d just stumble upon treasures everywhere you looked. Then we walked two miles home and promptly set off for Old Town Alexandria, where we moseyed around looking at shops. We had oysters for dinner, which were delicious. Then, this evening, I went with some of the interns from my office to see the Lincoln Memorial while it was lit up:

Have I mentioned how beautiful it is here? It’s really beautiful here. I love it. I love the energy, the pace, the monuments, the trees, the trails, the random coffee shops. It’s great.